Research On Environmental Public Interest Litigation

Environmental public interest litigation is an important environmental legal regime in some western countries,with the function of goading the government to enforce the law and the polluters to abide by the law,and thus promoting the environmental public interest.Nowadays, the environment problems are very serious in our country,which negatively impacting the routine of building a harmonious society.The article does some research on the basic theories of environmental public interest litigation,focuses on the citizen suits carried out in the U.S.,refers to some other countries for the legal regime,testifies the necessity and the possibility of introducing it into our country.And at last the article tries to construct the environmental public interest litigation which suits China's basic conditions.The preface of the article simply introduces the deteriorating environment in our country and the citizens' petition demands for the environmental interest.And then analyses that the management model of the environment in our country is all by our government and other social units are not involved in the environmental management system,which makes the environmental problems more serious.So the constructing of environmental public interest litigation in our country has a significant meaning.Chapter One discusses the basic theories of the environmental public interest litigation:analyzing the concepts and features of the public interest,public interest litigation,environment,environmental disputes, the rights to environment,environmental public interest litigation, conferring that environmental public interest litigation is a legal regime under which the citizens,enterprises,institutions,certain government agencies,social organizations may bring a suit in a court for legal relief against any person who is alleged to infringe the environmental public interest.Chapter Two makes a review of the practice of environmental public interest litigation overseas.This chapter focuses on the citizen suit in the U.S.,which is the representative of the environmental public interest litigation,and makes a detailed introduction of its legislative history and the general structure of citizen suit provisions including the plaintiffs, defendants,jurisdiction,subject matter jurisdiction,prior notice,diligent government prosecution bar,intervention,remedies,fees and settlements. Except for that,the article makes a brief introduction of citizen suits in the states of U.S.and environmental public interest litigation in Japan, England and France.They all give us a direction of constructing environmental public interest litigation in our country.Chapter Three analyses the necessity and the possibility of constructing environmental public interest litigation in our country and states that it is the inevitable demand of protecting the environmental interest,constructing a harmonious society and promoting the citizen quality,while we have a good foundation of law,public and the practice.Chapter Four is the assumption of the construction of environmental public interest litigation in our country,including the route of the enactment and the concrete design.After the analysis,the route should be adding the rights to environment into the Constitution and the environmental public interest litigation provision to the Environmental Protection Law,and the concrete design should be involved plaintiffs,subject matter jurisdiction,scope of cases,jurisdiction,limitation,remedies,fees and settlements.The conclusion of the article shows the aim of writing and the expectation for the establishment of the system of litigation.